On Sunday, my loving husband minded the sick children leaving me to attend mass alone, something I haven’t done in years. This gave me the leisure and the high moral ground to criticise others. Usually I am too busy being mortified by my progeny.
I went to Notre Dame au Sablon where the nice beggar kindly asked after the children and sent the ill mites his regards. The church is having work done on most of the nave and is cut off at the transept by enormous, ugly chipboard panels. It makes the church tiny with one entrance rather than relatively large with two. As I sat there near the door a constant stream of people came in to look around ignoring the large sign in four languages asking them not to do so during mass.
They looked around, they took photos, a family ensconced themselves in the row behind me and looked at their map. An elderly man sitting beside them put out his hand to shake hands for the sign of peace and they were baffled but gamely shook hands with all and sundry.
Would it kill them all to wait until mass was over?
Of course it wouldn’t. How rude.